Page 97 of Dirty Boss

“I—” My voice died. Heat rose up the back of my throat, and I was suddenly lightheaded. “He didn’t show me the last message,” I said, but it sounded weak even to my ears.

Alba snorted. “No, he didn’t, did he?” She tucked her phone away, not looking at me.

“Alba—”

“Save it, Vaughn. I know how little you think of me now.”

“I thought you were lying to me. I thought you were fake?—”

“I gathered,” she answered, sardonic and unruffled. It was only the very slight trembling in her hands and the tight swallow she couldn’t conceal that told me she wasn’t as unaffected as she appeared. She lifted her gaze to mine once more. “Goodbye, Vaughn.”

“Alba, wait?—”

She walked away from me. She didn’t run. She didn’t push past the other guests. She just gave me her back and glided across the room toward the exit, never once looking back.

THIRTY-SEVEN

ALBA

Surprisingly,it took me two whole days to break down. I took a cab home from the gala, stripped my dress off and hung it up, showered, and went to bed. Then I got up and lived in a strange, numb twilight. Breakfast, yoga, chores. Food had no flavor, but I chewed and swallowed anyway. My apartment remained pristine, because I cleaned more than I ever had before. I sat and stared out the window for an unknown amount of time, so long that my hip felt stiff when I stood, and I realized the sun had gone down. I existed somewhere outside my body, watching myself vacuum and scrub and cook and live like nothing at all was the matter.

Then, after two days, I turned my phone on for the first time.

It wasn’t the messages from Vaughn that snapped me out of it, or the nine calls I’d missed from him. It was a single message from my only friend.

Deena

How did it go??

I read those four words, and a flood of tears burst out of me. Collapsed on the couch that didn’t belong to me, in an apartmentthat wasn’t meant to be mine, I cried until my body shook, until it felt like I’d drained myself completely and I worried the swelling around my eyes would never go down again.

Finally, as my bottom lip trembled almost as much as my hands, I picked up my phone and answered.

Me

It was bad.

She didn’t answer for an hour, and I regretted even telling her that much. After all, we’d hung out a handful of times over the past couple of months. It wasn’t a deep and lasting friendship. She was entertained by my antics, but she wasn’t volunteering to be my shoulder to cry on.

I would forever be on my own. No one actually cared about me. I’d been such a fool to think that Vaughn did—that he might think highly enough of me that an attack on my character from James might not affect him.

That was the heart of my pain. I thought Vaughn saw me and respected me. I thought, finally, that I’d found a man who saw me as a real person, with flaws and desires and dreams. I thought he’d be the one to make me happy.

But he was just like the rest of them. I was useful to him, and as soon as it was inconvenient, he hurled insults at me and reminded me just how little he thought of me.

My phone buzzed, interrupting my pity party.

Deena

Oh no. You okay?

My throat tightened. I answered a single word:

Me

No.

Deena